Another chicken gone broody, and she's job sharing.

[edster951]

Yes thats right, Bossy and Daisy are jobsharing keeping the eggs warm, when one gets up for a feed and stretch, the other takes over...

I have 4 eggs (two broke), so closer to day 18 I'll seperate the two girls and split the eggs, 50-50, 2 each.

Aslo bought a dog kennel for $30NZ last night,

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=129593934

so now I have two brooder homes. Have to make a run for the new one.

 

[adeters2]

This past summer I had thre hens sharing a clutch of eggs... now that one has gone broody again the older hen is giving her a break from time to time again. When they hatch the hens should rear the chicks together. (at least mine did) I do have a pic of the clutch of eggs they shared...

Out of all these I ended up with about half hatched...

 

[edster951]

Quote:
Hmm interesting concept....maybe I should try that. I have a big kennel which would home two broodies.....

Chicken Little is getting close to being integated with the others and her chicks.

 

[Freebie]

Over the last summer, I had 3 millie fluer bantams sharing a nest and they hatched out 3 eggs. They all did a very good job of raising the babies together. It started with just one hen. Then another joined. then the last one stepped in. they had 5 eggs all together, but only 3 hatched. It was very cute.

 

[chicknmania]

We had two hens do that this fall. It was fascinating (we thought) watching them. Sadly, between the two of them they only hatched one egg! They did care for the chick together at first, but we had them in a pen together and after a while the two hens began to fight; I think they were just going stir-crazy as they are normally free-range. The actual mother of the chick jumped out of the pen one day when we had the door open feeding them, after the other hen had been beating on her. So stepmom raised Uno the chick. The real mom then hung around pathetically for several days after that...I felt sorry for her. She'll get another chance, though, probably.

 

[Kimblee]

Quote:
Poor real mama!

 

[edster951]

Candles eggs this morning.

Two showed no development or change from last week so were biffed.

One looked liked development, but not as far as you would expect for this stage, but left it there, and the forth egg showed the most development, but I'm not too sure on it.

I think this batch will be a zero % hatch rate.

I will try to get some day old chicks and see if I sneak them in later in the week. Day 21 is on Friday.

 

[Hotwings]

Quote:
Denise you forgot to tell them that these eggs were standard size barred rock eggs. It was so funny to see them with their foster mamas when the chicks were as big as the bantams and trying to nestle underneath them!